Need help on this one. On my old 386 using dos only, when I try to access the a/b drives I get a "general failure reading drive a/b" error. Checked the power plugs and the ribbin cable and they are seated at both ends. Checked the cmos and they are set correct, 5 1/4 for A and 3 1/2 for B. Any help or ideas will be appreciated. deltabob

If the bios and cables are ok, then this problem is usually either a bad drive, the drive is out of alignment, or the disk is defective. To check the drive, try formatting a disk. If the drive fails to format a diskette once or twice, and this happens with several different diskettes then suspect the drive, or controller. If you can't read / write a disk created from a different machine, then the drive is likely out of alignment. You can try a head cleaner also, but going by the age of the machine, I'd would suspect the drives. A bad controller will usually be caught by the post when powering up. A couple other suggestions are to remove the 5 1/4 and use the 3 1/2 as drive A:, and make sure the drives are set to their correct capacity in the bios. A 360k drive designated as being a 1.2mb will also cause such an error.

If you have another computer in the joint, try pulling out those drives and testing them in the other computer, using the old ribbon cable for the 5 1/4".

I would like to remove the 5 1/4 (A DRIVE) completely and then make the 3 1/2 (B DRIVE) the "A" new drive. What connector on the ribbin cable would connect to the 3 1/2, the very last one or the middle one or does it make any difference? Also, are there master/ slave option on the 3 1/2 (like on hard drives)? deltabob